Kino immer anders
Nishi is a timid, directionless young man who reunites with his childhood crush, Myon, only to be shot and killed by members of the Yakuza in a violent restaurant encounter. But death doesn’t stick: in the afterlife, Nishi defies God himself and wills himself back to life, choosing to escape fate and live with intention. What begins as a small, personal story quickly explodes into a chaotic, life-affirming odyssey, which will start with the protagonists getting trapped inside a huge whale, inhabited by an old man.
Directed by Masaaki Yuasa, Mind Game is a sensory onslaught of color, motion, and emotion. Rather than sticking to a single visual language, the film rushes through various styles: from hand-drawn frames to CGI and rotoscoping; this visual chaos mirrors the story’s emotional intensity.With its wild shifts in animation style and psychedelic visuals, Mind Game feels right at home in a program about midnight movies. This movie will leave audiences wondering whether they just experienced a masterpiece or went through a fever dream. Mind Game is less about plot and more about experience: visceral, dreamlike, and constantly reinventing itself.
Amos Herz
